A storage area network (SAN) typically interconnects many mass storage devices, commonly known as storage arrays, with a set of users for providing data storage and retrieval services to the user community. The storage area network interconnects a plurality of nodes including host computers, storage arrays, connectivity devices, and databases for providing the information retrieval services to the users. The host computers execute software entities known as agents for monitoring and managing the various nodes in the storage area network. In a large storage area network, the number of nodes may be substantial. Accordingly, users typically find it beneficial to operate a management application for monitoring and controlling the various nodes in the storage area network.
Conventional management applications deploy agents on host computers (hosts) in the storage area network for effecting management and control operations. A variety of different types of agents are available for deployment, and each type generally monitors and manages a particular type of node, or manageable entity in the storage area network. Further, a management application typically provides agents for each of a plurality of operating systems that may be available on the particular host computers on which the agents are deployed. As an example, for a particular vendor storage system, there might be different versions (i.e., executables) of the same agent that execute on Unix hosts (e.g., Solaris and Linux) and Windows hosts. Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., USA, and Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., USA. Conventional agent deployment is therefore complex and includes copying and installing each of the agents on the corresponding host. Accordingly, in a large storage area network, an administrator of a conventional storage area network management application installs many agents on multiple host nodes throughout the storage area network to manage a wide variety of manageable entities. The deployed agents monitor, control and manage various storage area network devices for providing command and control capability from a user console via a server coupled to the console.